


Harsh Words

by naked_Swedish_people



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Character Death, M/M, Marauders, Post-Betrayal, Post-Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-27
Updated: 2020-02-27
Packaged: 2021-02-27 19:08:03
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,689
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22920745
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/naked_Swedish_people/pseuds/naked_Swedish_people
Summary: Sirius can't get a good nights sleep since he's been freed from Azkaban and decides to take a little walk down memory lane. But the memories he finds are not pleasant, and also not his.
Relationships: Sirius Black/Remus Lupin
Kudos: 26





	Harsh Words

Sirius’ eyes flutter open. He’s met with the pitch blackness of the room, just a faint light shining in from the hallway. He hears voices. Probably the other Order members. He shifts in the bedsheets and feels something warm brush against his arm. He looks to his right and sees Remus; his eyes still closed and looking so peaceful that Sirius almost retracts his arm when he finds it reaching out to touch. He gives in to his urge and brings his fingertips to settle lightly on Remus’ cheek. The man shifts below him and Sirius freezes, afraid to wake him, but soon Remus stops and Sirius continues to map out his skin with his own fingers. There's a scar on the werewolf's face stretching from the corner of his top lip to his cheekbone. It’s Sirius’s favorite scar to kiss, so he does. He lightly brushes his lips against the slightly raised skin and follows it up until it ends. He looks at his lovers face and sighs.

He never thought he’d ever see Remus again. After 12 years of dementors and never ending pain, he gave up hope of ever seeing the man he loves again. Everyday was torture. He spent countless nights wondering how much Remus hated him, and he couldn't blame him.

The pain in his chest is growing to be uncomfortable so he slowly and carefully disentangles himself from the sheets and quietly slips out of the room. He wanders the halls of Grimmauld Place. To say that being in his old childhood home again is strange is a vast understatement. Everytime he walks past the Black family tree he remembers all the horrible things his mother would say to him. He often finds himself recalling memories he thought were lost to him, but being in this house brings them to the surface. He walks through the house till he’s past the kitchen, where some Order members were still milling about, he hears snippets of conversations but nothing that piques his interest.

He navigates through the old corridors and finds himself in front of the door to his old room. The door is closed but he knows no one had stepped in it so he pushes it open and steps inside. The act of pushing the door kicks up dust that makes him cough loudly but he shuts it tightly behind him and stands in the dusty, dark room. Where his bed used to be is now an empty space. The muggle posters he had proudly hung from almost every corner of the walls were now missing, the slight discoloration of the wallpaper from years of sun damage is the only indication they had been there at all.

When Sirius is certain no bad memories are going to attack him here, he makes his way to his closet. He hasn’t gone through it yet, knows it's this only thing no one has touched yet. He pulls the closet door open and waves away more dust from his face. He expected to find it mostly empty. But there was still clothes and neatly pressed cloaks hung up. Sirius runs his hand along one sleeve of his favorite sweater, still soft even with the moth holes littering the fabric. He had thought his mother would have gotten rid of all his belongings after she had burned his name from the family tree. Maybe she had forgotten to look here.

Above his clothes is a rack with mounds of books and papers. He reaches up and takes each stack down to place on the floor. When he has cleared out the top shelf, Sirius sits down to start going through everything. The first thing he picks up is a stack of birthday cards from his 14th birthday. Most are obligatory cards from distant family members who didn't really care about him, but he finds one from each of the Marauders.

James had sent him a Bigonville Bombers quidditch team card, the members flying around and spelling ‘Happy Birthday’ in the air with their brooms. He’s surprised the enchantment has held up over the years. There was a heartfelt note that Sirius is sure James’ mother had forced him to write, James was never one for mushy feelings. He smiles nonetheless at the heartfelt words. Peter had sent a card with cute baby dragons rolling around on top of eachother, he hadn’t written anything in the card but his name. Sirius feels a wave of nausea rush over him quickly replaced by anger and is tempted to throw it out or rip it to sheds. But he can’t bring himself to do it. He carefully sets it aside. Remus’ card was a simple muggle birthday card, but the standard note inside was crossed out and below it is Remus’ long scrolling script. Sirius wants to read it but knows his heart isn’t able handle it at the moment.

He puts all the family cards aside carelessly and places the three others in a neat pile and reaches for the next item. It’s a picture book that James’ mother had made for him. Sirius opens it to the first page, a picture of James, Remus, Peter and himself stares back at him. It must have been from their 6th year. They’re near the lake at Hogwarts and are smiling at the camera and waving. It pains him slightly to see their bright faces so carelessly happy and wants to tell each of them of the horrors they’ll each experience in just a few years time, if only to prepare them. He turns to the next page, one of him and James flying broomsticks above the Potters backyard with Peter and Remus sitting beneath a tree. Peter is clapping and laughing and Remus is reading a book, sneaking glances up at the action above him. He skips a few pages until he gets to the back of the book where he knows there's photos Mrs. Potter certainly did not take.

There's one of Remus in 7th year laying face up on one of their dorm beds, he’s wearing absolutely nothing but an impish grin on his face. He looks up at whoever is taking the picture and tries to put on a seductive face before dissolving into giggles. Sirius can almost hear the childlike joy written across Remus’s face and desperately wishes these pictures could capture sound. There’s another of young Remus writhing on the bed, still completely naked, a hand disappearing below the picture moving in time with his breathing. He remembers every detail of Remus’ body. He had to in order to stay sane in Azkaban, even if he felt guilty thinking of a person who he had no doubt hated him more than anything. On the last page of the book is one more of Remus. In the photo he’s just sleeping, his chest rising and falling slowly, a hand reaches out to him, placing itself gently on his face.

Sirius closes the book and puts it carefully down with the cards. The next item is a cluster of papers. Some he recognizes as old O.W.L and N.E.W.T test results with a slew of ‘Acceptable’ scores in Professor McGonagalls handwriting. But there are several he doesn’t recognize as his own handwriting. In fact, it’s Remus’ handwriting. Sirius reads the first word and realizes its a letter to him, and judging by the dates, he was in Azkaban when Remus’s wrote these. _Remus wrote to me while I was in Azkaban?_ The thought makes his heart soar but then he reads the first line of the first page and he knows his heart was wrong to soar so soon.

_Sirius,_

_How could you have deceived us for so long? How could you have done this to your best friend? Were you never the person I thought you were? Were your lying the entire time? I hope you wallow in misery until you die! I hope you die in Azkaban, it's the least you could do after everything you've done!_

_-Remus_

The ink is thick on the page, like whatever hand wrote it was heavy and angry.

Sirius puts down the first letter, his hands shaking but unable to stop himself from picking up the second.

_Sirius,_

_Harry was in the house with them when it happened, did you know that? They won’t even let me take care of him. You were supposed to protect him, make sure he was happy and safe and now he’s living with Lily’s awful sister and her awful husband. You did this!_

_-Remus_

Sirius knew about Harry, gave his motorcycle to Hagrid himself when he got to James and Lily’s destroyed home.

He feels tears start to well at his eyes.

_Sirius,_

_Your mother would be proud of you. Your family would be proud of you. You truly are a Black now. I hope you can rest easy with that knowledge. That to finally be accepted into your own family you had to betray the people who loved you the most, you had to throw away your best friends life. You destroy everything you touch Sirius Black. You destroyed James and Lily and Harry’s life, they will never wake up as a family on Christmas morning or get to see little Harry on the train to Hogwarts. And you destroyed me, I will never fully trust someone as I’ve trusted you, I will never love again. And it’s all your fault._

Sirius knows he not like his family, knows that these are just cheaps jabs but Remus’ letter hurts all the same. He hadn’t even signed it.

_Sirius,_

_Please tell me it wasn't all fake. You weren’t lying to me were you? When we lied in bed? Everything you told me, every little whisper. Please tell me that wasn't a lie. I don’t think I could deal with it if you lied to me about that. You were the only one to ever truly love me and to think you never truly did is too much to bear._

_-Remus_

This one was written sloppily and there was dried tear marks on the page. Sirius feels the tears in his eyes spill over, joining the dried ones on the letter.

He skims through a few more. They’re all mostly the same, alternating between cursing his name, pleading with him, and jabs whose sole purpose was to hurt him. There is one at the bottom that’s different. It’s longer and free of tear marks and the heavy use of ink was gone, replaced with Remus’ normal, steady hand.

_Dear Sirius,_

_I must have written a dozen or so of these letters in the past year. Most of them angry and sad and all of them full of hate. I don’t want to write about any of that anymore. Really, I don’t want to write anything anymore. But I will write one more letter that you’ll never see. I want to apologize for everything I said about you. I don’t know why I’m apologizing, you’ll never see any of these letters, and I don’t want you to. I’ve been giving a lot of thought to what happened to James and Lily that night and I so desperately want to believe it wasn’t you who betrayed them. That you weren't their secret keeper. I want to believe you couldn’t do that to your best friend. Throughout all the years I’ve known you and Peter and James, I like to think I always knew you the best. I like to think that you loved me just as much as I loved you. And I like to think that you’re innocent. I can’t prove it and I don’t have any evidence yet. And I could be completely wrong about you but I don’t think I am. I’m sorry, Sirius._

_-Love, Remus_

“Padfoot?”

A voice comes from the door, startling Sirius into dropping the letters. He turns to see who had said his name.

Remus is standing in the doorway to his room, bleary eyed with sleep rumpled hair. “Sirius, are you ok?” he asks when he sees the tears rolling down Sirius’ cheeks. He comes to crouch beside him and takes Sirius’ face in his hands and holds him there.

Sirius tries to wipe his tears away but it’s no use, he can’t stop them from falling. “I’m fine,” he tries but even to his own ears his voice sounds raw.

“You are not fine, what's wrong,” Remus gives him a concerned look, “please tell me---” he looks to Sirius’ lap and sees the letters. Remus’ face falls instantly, “you weren’t meant to see those,” he takes them gently from Sirius’ lap, “you were never meant to read them”.

Sirius shakes his head, “no, its ok, I---”.

“It’s not ok,” Remus cuts him off, “I am so sorry you saw them, I never meant any of this,” he holds up the papers, “I was angry and sad and my therapist said I should write about it and---”.

“You had a therapist?” Sirius asks incredulously, “you never told me that”.

Remus looks down and hangs his head slightly, “it was a muggle therapist. Couldn’t exactly tell her everything, but I told her enough that she could help. The letters were just a stupid exercise that she thought could help me,” he looks to Sirius, “it never did, it just made me feel even worse.” Sirius stays silent, letting the knowledge that he had hurt Remus that badly wash over him. He doesn’t notice the new tears until Rumus brushes them away with his thumb. “I’m so sorry you saw them, I should’ve cleaned them up.” Remus says softly, still running his thumb over Sirius’s cheek in an attempt to quell the tears, “I should have thrown them away.”

Sirius pulls away and roughly scrubs at his eyes. He forces a half smile and turns to Remus. “I’m glad I saw them,” he tries to look sincere, “I had almost forgotten how much I had hurt you, how much I had hurt everyone. They just reminded me of that,” he scrubs at his face again, “I deserve everything you said in those letters.”

“No! How can you say that Padfoot?” Remus reaches out to cup Sirius’s face but the latter doesn’t let him, instead turning and looking down at the scattered papers still on the floor. Remus hesitates, he’s never seen Sirius quite so somber. He was different when he returned from Azkaban, but never sad, just confused and disbelieving that he was free. Remus tried to help him adjust but he knew there was something Sirius was keeping hidden from the other Order members and himself. It’s not until now that Remus realizes what that something is. Sirius feels undeserving to be free.

“Yes, you hurt me,” Remus hates the words he says but has to convince Sirius that he doesn’t have to punish himself anymore, “I couldn’t get out of bed for weeks after it happened,” he keeps his eyes trained on Sirius as he continues, “but I’ve forgiven you, Sirius, because it wasn’t you.”

There's a sniffle and Sirius lifts his head to look at Remus, “I should have been there” he says through a sob, sounding like a broken man. And this time he readily falls into Remus’s open arms, letting himself be comforted.

Remus tries to find the right words to say to Padfoot, “They knew you loved them,” is all he can come up with, not able to say their names, “and they forgive you, too” he puts as much meaning behind those words as he can, hoping Sirius will listen.

Sirius looks at him with bloodshot eyes, “I loved them so much!” he cries into Remus’s shoulder. “I loved you too” he pulls away to wipe his face with his sleeve, “I still love you, I don’t think I’ve said that since I’ve been home.”

Remus pulls Sirius tighter to his body and says “I know you do, you’ve never had to say it,” he buries his face in Sirius’s long black hair, “I love you too,” he whispers.

**Author's Note:**

> I can't tell you how much time I've spent working on this fic!! It started with a simple enough premise two years ago and has become the bane of my existence ever since. 
> 
> I couldn't find a good way to end it and every time I thought it was going to end, something I wrote five paragraphs ago pigeon-held me into writing yet another paragraph to explain everything! I have rewritten, re-tensed (yes, its a word I just made up, this whole thing was in "past tense" so I changed it to "present tense") and re-second guessed myself so many times! I'm still not totally happy with the ending. 
> 
> I figure this is just the beginning of a very long conversation these two need to have about the rebuilding of trust and love between them, because even though they both know they had nothing to do with James and Lily's deaths, it can be hard to open yourself up again after being betrayed. But I wanted to end it on a happy note, Remus and Sirius will stay together as long as they can love.


End file.
